


Persuaded

by completelyhopeless



Series: Persuaded Universe [1]
Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Break Up, Comment Fic, Community: comment_fic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 15:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3255014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between her father's disapproval, her uncle's advice, and her love for him making her want to do what's best for him, Barbara is persuaded to end their engagement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Persuaded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/gifts).



> This is a prequel for a Persuasion AU I'm developing. I didn't set all the roles yet, and I need to dive back into comics and do research so I can write some of the characters I'm not that familiar with, but I love the movie and the book and the story and it struck me the other day that Dick and Babs had a relationship that was like Anne and Wentworth's.
> 
> I told myself I wasn't going to write it, but then there was a prompt: _[any. any. Jane Austen](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/593878.html?thread=82920406#t82920406)_ and after asking for clarification (but kind of knowing I was already doomed) I explained about this idea I had and was encouraged to go ahead with it because it was Persuasion.
> 
> I still feel kind of unequal to it, but I did write it and I'm told there should be more, so I will try for that. I have some ideas that I would like to see if I can manage to get them written.

* * *

Had Barbara been born into another family, she might have known how truly different she was in her opinions of who mattered and who she wished to spend time with, in whose company was worth cultivating and whose was not. Had she not been the daughter of a baronet more concerned with fashion and his own appearance, she might have understood herself for the unique creature she was.

She didn't know that her opinions were so very different from anyone else's—her family never gave her the chance to voice them, and the only ones who encouraged her to speak her thoughts were ones who thought like her.

Like him.

The source of all the trouble.

He'd come to see his brother, the new curate, and she had been intrigued by him, the boy from the circus, some kind of acrobat of mixed descent. She had seen so little of the world, and she had loved hearing his stories of the places he'd been either with the circus or with the man his sister had married, the one who had taken all of them in after the death of his parents caused the circus to collapse and them to be orphans.

She had thought that was the only interest she had in him—oh, some of the other girls had spoken of his features and how pleasing they were despite being exotic, but she had never thought that mattered—since they seemed to share nothing more than a casual acquaintance. She liked people who could find a way to engage her mind, and he was one of few who did with his tales of far away.

Then one day he showed her an acrobatic trick that allowed her to feel like she was flying, something forbidden to a lady like her, and after that, his touch always reminded her of that rush of feeling, that sense of flight, even with gloved hands and stiff formalities. He was not good with them, always forgetting and being too familiar, and she would correct him with a smile, and when he smiled back, she knew what had been casual acquaintance was now a flirtation, perhaps more.

When he asked her to marry him a few weeks later, she wasn't surprised. She had known he would do it before he did, she thought, and she'd laughed through his stumbling words and promises and said yes because she didn't want to give up that feeling of flight.

Yet she crashed to the ground quickly when her family found out. Her father was dead set against it—Richard had no family, no connections, and he was _foreign._ He was entirely unsuitable. He had no money and no prospects. What money he had made, he had spent, because he was generous and didn't think too much of the future. He could have learned restraint, she thought, but her father did not want to hear it.

She would probably have ignored all her father's arguments, would have outright defied him and the older sister who agreed with him if she had to, if not for her uncle.

James Gordon had done more to raise her than her father had, truthfully, and he had been the one to see her through the loss of her mother. He was the one who encouraged her mind, the only one in her family who seemed to care about her at all or thought her opinion mattered, and she could not have been more shocked to have him disapprove.

She was too young, he said, to marry someone with no money and an uncertain future. She would make herself dependent on a man who had already proved incapable of handling money and unlikely to gain any kind of promotion. Richard was optimistic, he was a good fighter, and the navy was full of opportunity for him, but her uncle did not see it that way. Richard might be smart, but he expressed himself in unfortunate ways, almost always impudent. A former naval man himself, her uncle was convinced that Richard's attitude would keep him from finding favor and success in his chosen career.

Uncle James gave her cautionary tales of men who'd gone to sea with nothing more than their ambitions, told her tales of wives left to debt and despair by foolish young hopes and a lack of sense, of widows with children when they were still children themselves.

Barbara had believed it would be different for them. They could manage even if they never had a great fortune. She did not need one when she had Richard. She was not so stupid as to believe love was all they needed, but she believed that she could be economic and withstand even a drastic reduction in her circumstances.

Uncle James didn't want her to go through that, wanted more for her, and that was noble and good and all she loved about her uncle.

She would have defied him, too, if he hadn't convinced her that she should set Richard free for his own good. He was actually younger than her, and he knew so little of the way that society worked. He needed time to learn, to stand on his own, to become a man in his own right. He needed to seek his life and his fortune without her dependence on him.

They were too young. This wasn't the right time.

It broke her heart, but she had to let him go.

“Babs?” Richard asked, reaching for her hand. “You haven't said anything since we started walking and I know I talk enough where you don't have to say anything, but when you're _this_ quiet, you worry me.”

She kept her hand out of reach, and that, she feared, was all he needed to know.


End file.
